Nikki (15 page)

She shrugged. “Oh, well.” She frowned slightly. “I hope it’s all right.”

They assured her, and she had a calm, rather virtuous feeling of bland prettiness when they arrived at the club. Her breasts weren’t overexposed and the dress banished her hips and she was sure she was merely pleasing and unexciting. She exchanged compliments with many women, just like one of the girls, she felt. And it was that way all evening long, nearly.

Yet she became aware that she had stepped out of the daytime women-and-children world and right into the one that made her a threat. There was no outright hostility, not even little cattinesses, just a sort of alertness on the part of the other women, all of whom had husbands. The husbands had little jokes to make about the dress, and about women’s styles in general.

In particular, they observed Nikki’s dress, directly and indirectly, as though it were a continual fascination, calling on their powers of speculation to discover just what that frothy, foolish, bulky wrapping concealed. Not a man made an improper remark or danced too possessively with her, but there was no avoiding the fact that she affected them. They wanted her, or they were going to want her if they were around her long. Coming home, Dolores and Jim told her that everyone had been happy with her, that everything was fine, just fine.

It wasn’t fine. Nikki faced it. Without a man of her own she would be a constant temptation, and the wives would be aware of it every minute and would protect themselves and consider her an enemy. And that enmity would extend to Dolores and Jim and Val and Jimmy like a subtle poison, if this home continued to shelter her.

She had the apartment, the home of her own, and soon she’d move back there. But, she realized, not even that would mean anything, so long as she remained in contact with Dolores, remained a threat to the women in Dolores’s world. She stood in the dark staring out at the lovely grounds of this home with a sense of anguish. And here she’d thought she was “in,” that she was succeeding in becoming a part of this life, that she could look forward to some sort of continuity, some sort of secure identity, and maintain this rich, nourishing bond with Dolores … with this other self of hers.

“I don’t know,” she said aloud. “I don’t know.”

These things always happened. She’d involve herself in something or somebody and the line ahead would be clear and everything would be flowing along, and then
snap
. Wherever she was, whatever she did, everything always came to nothing.

She felt listless and too inert to make any sort of move, just trotting along behind Dolores’s apron strings and filling herself on the sweetness of the kids and overeating and playing at the bright, happy games on the surface, while inwardly she felt a deepening sense of hopelessness. She began to tire more often, and fell into the habit of taking a nap when the kids did … not just relaxing, but dropping dead away until the kids would come whooping in to climb all over her, anxious to get her back in action.

She lay frisking around with them one afternoon when Dolores came in and sat on the bed, watching it all with a rather misty eye. “What’re you thinking, T—” Nikki caught herself before saying “Taffy Head” in front of the kids. “About how right you were that I should come here?”

Dolores nodded.

“Or were you wondering when I’m going to have sense enough to get the blanketty-blank out?”

“Blanketty-blank is hell,” Val told her sweetly, then explained to Dolores. “Aunt Nikki didn’t know that, Mommy.”

Dolores heightened the humor of it by playing it straight. “Well, if she’ll promise not to say it any more …”

Val, then Jimmy, looked promptingly at Nikki. Their faces glowed with a sober confidence that she would choose the path of righteousness, Nikki thought, suppressing her impulse to smile. A moment later there was no impulse to suppress; she was not playing a game but involved deeply and disturbingly in something … something she couldn’t quite define.

“I promise,” she said gravely.

Val nodded at her mother, happily, then gave Nikki such a long tender look of pride and pleasure that Nikki had to seize and kiss her.

Presently Dolores shooed them out and went into the hall with them. She came back into the room alone. Nikki was standing up, barefoot and in her slip, her hair dark and loose around her pale face. Her green eyes stared toward Dolores as she came close.

“That promise you made,” Dolores said, unsmilingly, “was to me … that you’re not to talk about leaving.”

Nikki lowered her eyes and nodded. She looked up anxiously at Dolores and said in a husky voice, “I have to ask you something. Did you see me while they were looking at me and waiting for me to promise?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you came back in here? Is that why you’re insisting I musn’t talk of leaving? Did I look as though I was … well, out of touch with reality?”

“No.”

Nikki shook her head, pushed back at her hair.

“Listen. When they were waiting for me to be ‘saved,’ they were in dead earnest. And so was I.”

“I know.”

“And when I had to grab Val and kiss her, I was telling her how grateful I was.”

“For saving your soul?”

She paced away from Dolores, came back, sat on the edge of the bed, clasping her hands between her spread knees. “The very opposite. Both Jimmy and she knew that I hadn’t knowingly said a bad thing, because Aunt Nikki simply wasn’t capable of badness. They protected me. I might blindly stray, and be lost, and they just loved me so wholly, so unquestioningly that …” She got to her feet again. She began to blink rapidly. “I’m entirely too tearful these days.”

“We’ll have a cigarette.”

When they’d lighted, Nikki wandered around the room. “God, I’m heavy. The drain I must be on you emotionally!”

“You always give plenty in return, Nikki.”

“I just don’t Know if I can live up to their faith. They’re so beautiful, with such high standards of purity and innocence, and I’m so …” she broke off, hopelessly.

“Listen, honey,” Dolores said. “They’re often deliberately bad, if you want to use that word. They’re both good and bad, and the obvious point for you, Nikki, is that just because you’re aware, like the rest of us, that you’re not one hundred per cent good doesn’t mean that you’re therefore one hundred per cent bad.”

“Oh, well, hell, I’m not
that
stupid.”

“But you are too stupid to see that you need a man and home and kids of your own that you can just pour yourself out on.”

“No, I’m not, either. I’m going to get married and settle down right in this area.”

“You are?” Dolores blinked. “You mean you really have decided?” She began to grin, then to laugh. “Why, that’s wonderful, honey. Who’s the man?”

“Man? Oh, I dunno. Maybe John Barket. Or maybe I’ll put a long-distance call through to Lawton Enright. We were engaged, and once in a while he wires or phones or sends heavy-breathing special delivery letters.” She frowned. “But no, I don’t think I could uproot him to move out here. Oh, well, the details don’t matter. The decision’s the thing, and I’ve made it.”

“Just this minute you’ve decided?”

“Yes.”

“But honey, you can’t just cold-bloodedly …”

“Why, I can too. You know good and well you were on the prowl for a husband from before you even knew Jim existed.”

“But if I hadn’t
loved
Jim …”

“Oh, I’ll love.” Nikki laughed happily and flung both arms out widely. Hell, I’ll fall in love, don’t ever worry about that!”

And so she did, the second Saturday morning.

It happened in the supermarket, and it was his scowl that did it.

The scowl was directed at the wiry red-haired woman, half his size, who was loading their grocery cart and giving him non-stop hell about something. He was like a puppy of some huge breed set upon by a yapping terrier. It was as if he’d tried meeting the situation with a tail wag and a foolish “Woof” or two, then, not knowing how to bite, had tried to look ferocious. The scowl was fantastically unconvincing, because there was no meanness in him, Nikki knew at once. Tall and brown, with cropped dark hair and a strong, clean-lined body, he was the handsomest thing she had ever seen.

The terrier female, without a pause in her yapping, moved her head tersely, and he rolled the cart; she frowned him to a stop while she loaded some cans, and Nikki found herself seething against the outrageous injustice of an inferior creature dominating a superior. Then her anger backlashed against
him
for allowing himself to be abused, offering nothing better than that farce of a scowl. She became so involved that she forgot that she’d been delegated to buy jellies and jams.

She backed her cart off and began to scowl at labels and jars, tapping one sandaled foot angrily. He was beneath contempt. Then he was coming again and she noticed the positively criminal perfection of his wide-browed, strong-chinned face, the fine set of his head. He couldn’t help it, she thought meltingly, if the basic love in him made it impossible for him to snarl and snap and hurt even when he was being hurt.

Nikki took a sharper look at the woman, now only a couple of yards from her, and saw that, in spite of an animated pretty face and a trim figure, she wasn’t young at all. She was his mother, Nikki realized. Of course.

A moment later the real nature of that scowl became clear. It was a form of respect, a polite assurance that indeed he was listening and taking things with due seriousness. If he was listening at all he heard tones, not words or meaning, and behind the mask his eyes occupied themselves with Nikki’s legs.

Nikki strolled on, coming up to them and passing. She was wearing a loose tangerine shirt and red shorts, but the shirt dropped to the edge of the shorts, concealing them as if she might have nothing on under the shirt. His head turned just a little as she passed, and the slope of his gaze was downward and steady on the upper nakedness of her thighs, and for just an instant his eyes closed and he grinned.

Oh, that devil! She thought, hurrying a little and wondering frantically if she was blushing. If he’d reached out and put his hand on her, the touch couldn’t have been more intimate. She got out of that aisle and away, feeling such a deliciously giggly pleasure that when she ran into Jim and Dolores she was positive they could see right through to the shamelessness of her thoughts and feelings.

Jim, in particular, felt something. Her costume this morning had whetted him anyhow, and he’d found the opportunity to get her alone and mutter, “Are you deliberately trying to drive me crazy?” Now his wide, pleasantly humorous mouth drew into such a tight line that there was a yellowish rim of compression around the edge, and his nose seemed to sharpen with tension, as if he caught a lust-scent from her body.

They’d passed through the check-out counter and Jim had gone on to get the car to bring to the loading area. Nikki and Dolores and the kids were walking toward the exit when she saw him again. He was standing with his mother eating a slice of pizza and drinking from a paper cup. They were smilingly at peace with each other.

“See that pretty boy over there?” Nikki said in an undertone to Dolores. “You wouldn’t know him, I suppose.”

“Why, that’s Archer Cole and his mother.”

“I saw him back in the grocery. I
must
meet him.”

“I hardly know him.”

“It’s
love
.”

“Oh, Nikki!”

“It is, it is. I
know
. Sure, I said I was going to fall in love, and you’ll think it’s just that, but it’s not. It’s it, the real thing, for sure. I just know.”

“I’ll introduce you,” Dolores said matter-of-factly.

Mrs. Cole sighted them and advanced, alone. “Dolores,” she sang out eagerly. “Dolores Thelton. How nice!”

“Hello, Ruth. How are you? I haven’t seen you in …”

“And here are those
darling
children. How are you, dears?” She beamed an intense smile down at Val, who gaped dumbly, then frowningly put one of her braid ends in her mouth.

“I wanted you to meet …” Dolores began.

Mrs. Cole failed to hear. “And Jim?” Her bright gaze scoured the area. “Isn’t Jim with you? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

Nikki was gazing past her with a faint smile. Archer Cole stood grinning and chewing and looking at her. He rolled his eyes upward briefly and winked. He strolled up to stand beside his mother. Mrs. Cole gave him a glance like a private stab, then smiled dazzlingly up into his face, probably hoping to blind him, Nikki thought amusedly.

“Oh, here you are, Archer. Dolores, you know Archer.”

“Of course. How are you, Archer? This is my friend, Nikki Duquesne. She’s my house guest.”

“Oh, how nice!” Mrs. Cole cried happily. “It’s such a pleasure, Miss Duquesne. Archer, have you ever seen such sweet little children in your life?” She directed his attention to Val and Jimmy. She cooed to Jimmy, “This is my little boy.” Jimmy obviously didn’t believe it.

“Hair tastes terrible,” Val said and opened her mouth wide, reaching her tongue out almost to her chin.

Archer spoke to the kids, to Dolores, the while reaching out for Nikki’s hand. “So this is Nikki Duquesne!” His gaze stroked down to her feet and up again with frank, casual admiration. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Thank you,” she said, feeling simpery.

“Do you play golf?”

She nodded, her eyes round and bright on him, her lips pushed out faintly. She bent one knee slightly, aware that the pose gave her legs an even more seductive flavor. There was a waiting, inviting submissiveness about her whole body.

“Well, if you cheat on your score I need a partner for a foursome at ten in the morning.”

“Oh, I cheat,” she assured him.

“Archer, dear!” his mother reminded him. “You’ve forgotten that you have a partner for tomorrow.”

“Did have. She’s flying to Hong Kong tonight.”

“Hong Kong? Oh, you just made that up.”

Mrs. Cole pushed at him, laughing playfully. “Miss Duquesne hasn’t accepted, and I’m sure Mrs. Thelton has plans for her guest. He’s
so
impulsive! Son, you can’t just step in and …”

Dolores said pleasantly: “We had nothing special planned.”